


The Dangers of Complacency

by GaHoolianGirl



Category: Teen Titans (Animated Series)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, F/M, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, I felt like it would have been a dif story with the threat of death looming, Illnesses, It's just about how they handle her being down for the count basically, Post-Canon, Post-Trouble in Tokyo, Team Feels, The stakes aren't that high (they know she won't die)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 00:27:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21838267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GaHoolianGirl/pseuds/GaHoolianGirl
Summary: Nodding weakly, he picked up the books and trudged back into the library, mumbling about how “Of course that dude on that forum didn’t have something that could bring down the Teen Titans...”Dusting his hands off, Robin turned to his teammates, “Alright team, lets go get lunch!”There were three resounding (well, mildly enthusiastic from Raven) cheers to this declaration.Three.“Star?” Robin’s voice grew concerned, normally his girlfriend was toe-to-toe with Cyborg in excitement about sharing a good pizza. He looked up to the sky, where she might normally hover.No.He looked just about his eye level, where she normally stood.No.He looked down at the ground-“STAR!”The Titans face off the pettiest of petty criminals who tosses an ineffectual smoke bomb...well, it doesn't effect all butoneof them.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Koriand'r
Comments: 1
Kudos: 41





	The Dangers of Complacency

**Author's Note:**

> If you told me a week ago that I would write 9 pages of a Teen Titans fanfic at the tail end 2019 I would not have believed you, but here we are. This was fun to write, I was attempting to go for the feel of an actual episode, even if not one-to-one.

To say that the day-to-day of the Teen Titans was boring was perhaps an understatement, but on average, they weren’t facing their most exciting threats every single day. Most days they chased down petty criminals, doing nothing more than stirring up commotion, hoping to get famous by being taken down by the Teen Titans themselves. In most cases, their arrests were so quick and painless that they didn’t even get that satisfaction. They usually were home by lunch.

There were a few weeks for which this had become the norm for them, and with complacency comes danger.

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stand down now. It wouldn’t be very fun putting the smack down on someone so weak,” Cyborg announced with a flourish to the masked man (it was a simple ski mask, it wasn’t even _fun_ ) leaving the _library_ of all places with a full sack, opening up his sonic cannon as an empty threat. Beast Boy alighted on a lamppost, transforming back into his human form in a flash, “He’s right, dude, not the smartest idea. Besides, we have an extra large half-veggie-half-sausage pizza supreme with our name on it after this, so let’s make this quick, kay?”

The stranger held the bag in his hand tighter, seemingly not ready to back down. It was now Raven’s turn to comment, “Not very smart, are you? Just because something is old doesn’t mean it’s valuable. Those books are worth maybe a few cents each.”

Now he spoke, “Damn! I knew I shouldn’t listen to online criminal chat rooms.”

Robin’s eyebrows shot up, “You planned your first heist from advice you got on the internet? Really?” he shook his head, astonished expression slipping into a confident smile, “I almost feel sorry for you. _Almost_.”

The would-be robber’s eyes scanned around the group, and when his eyes finally landed on one of Starfire’s starbolts aimed squarely at his chest, he threw his arms up...and tossed a canister onto the pavement in front of them, which cracked out to release a smokey gas. A smirk formed on his lips as he dropped the books and booked it in the opposite direction-

-until Raven alighted in front of him, entirely unharmed, “Honestly, just go help the librarian put the books back and we won’t even call the police. You’re not worth the trouble.”

Nodding weakly, he picked up the books and trudged back into the library, mumbling about how “Of course that dude on that forum didn’t have something that could bring down the Teen Titans...”

Dusting his hands off, Robin turned to his teammates, “Alright team, lets go get lunch!”

There were three resounding (well, mildly enthusiastic from Raven) cheers to this declaration.

Three.

“Star?” Robin’s voice grew concerned, normally his girlfriend was toe-to-toe with Cyborg in excitement about sharing a good pizza. He looked up to the sky, where she might normally hover.

No.

He looked just about his eye level, where she normally stood.

_No._

He looked down at the ground-

“ ** _STAR!_** ”

All four of them ran towards her, Robin kneeling to check her pulse (mindful of the fact that Tamaranian’s veins were just off to the side of where he was used to, like she had told him). He shook her shoulder nervously, her body felt limp in his hands, and her breathing was heavy and uneven. Her normally warm skin was cooling fast and his gloves stuck to her sweaty arms, her complexion a slightly off-yellow pallor, “Star? _Star!!! We need to get her back to the tower now!_ ”

Nodding, Cyborg and Raven shared a look. He picked Starfire up off the ground and she created a platform to lift him off the ground, flying off in the direction of Titans Tower, not before quickly giving Robin a thumbs up. It took every muscle he had in his body to refrain from running after them, fully aware that he couldn't walk on water, turning to Beast Boy, expression pained and voice slow, “Mind if I snag a ride?”

The green boy nodded, morphing into his signature pterodactyl and hoisting Robin into the air, taking off at top speed after the others.

* * *

When the computer completed it’s diagnostics in thirty seconds ( _T_ _oo long_ , Robin thought petulantly), Cyborg grimaced. “She’s gonna be fine, but it’ll be a little touch and go in the meantime. Looks like that doofus managed to get some sort of reagent that’s harmless to humans, but a mild toxin to Tamaranians.”

Robin slammed his fist into his palm, hard enough to hurt, “We need to-”

“Nuh uh, hotshot,” Cyborg said sternly, holding out a hand towards the prone girl on the couch, “You need to stay here with your girl. It’s not fata-” he stopped himself, knowing full well that wasn’t the most ideal word choice right now, “She _will_ be fine, but she needs someone with her. We’ll go out and see if we can find who sold this stuff and if they something that can speed up the recovery.”

Part of him wanted to protest, his first instinct to Starfire being hurt like this was to go and beat the snot out of whoever did it, but his logical brain and the stern look from his friends had him think otherwise. They were right, what Star needed now was to be taken care of, not to be avenged. He nodded, “Good plan. Contact me the _moment_ you find it,” his face fell, tone going from leader to concerned boyfriend, “ _Please_.”

Smilingly softly, Raven placed a firm hand on his shoulder, “Don’t worry. We want her to get better too, we’ll be as quick as we can. Right now, what she needs is your support. Get her comfortable and stay with her, and she’ll be fine.”

“You’re right,” he turned to look at her, eyes softening like they often did in her direction. While this exchange was happening, Cyborg had been running through various online forums and chat rooms various phrases along the lines of _Can take down the Teen Titans?_ , and now got several pings.

“Bingo,” he announced proudly, “We’ve got leads. BB, Rae, let’s get a move on.”

“Aye aye sir!” Beast Boy said with a salute, following the other two out the door, before pausing before he passed the threshold, a frown in place of his usual smile, “I know what Cy said but...she’ll be okay, right? You know her better than anyone.”

Robin’s knowledge of medicine was only enough to patch a few injuries on the field to keep going until the fight was done, but Beast Boy was right, he might not be a doctor, but he knows Starfire, and this would not be enough to break her. He just silently nodded, which was enough to engender confidence in his friend, who bounded off after the others. This left Robin alone in the common room with his ill girlfriend, the harshest parts of that reality settling in now. She had passed out completely from the pain moments after she was affected, and was now still unconscious.

Delicately as he could, he lifted her up to carry her to her room, desperately trying to ignore how weak the normally indomitable warrior in his arms felt.

* * *

It was forty minutes before Starfire awoke, eyelids heavy and breathing even moreso. It took her a moment to acclimate to her surroundings, which she quickly registered her own room. _X’Hal, why do I feel so..._

“Starfire?”

An unmistakable voice.

“Robin...?”

“I’m right here,” he said urgently, putting down the bowl of water and rag he was carrying on the floor beside her bed, scrambling to grab her hand, “How are you feeling?”

She smiled weakly, “Very poorly. What happened? I remember we were confronting that very foolish man who thought it clever to steal from a library, and then...”

“He had some sort of gas, it doesn’t hurt humans but it affects Tamaranians,” he reached out to smooth her hair out of her face, resting his palm on her cheek afterwards, gritting his teeth, “We were really scared.”

_I have made my friends worry?_

“I am ashamed,” her voice was husky and quiet from her dry throat, but the message of her words was loud and clear, and clearly unappreciated. Robin leaned over to kiss her sweaty forehead, holding it there for a moment before placing another on her nose, and then pulling away, looking surprisingly...stern?

“Don’t beat yourself up over something you had no control over. It was just an idiot who got a lucky break, not a mistake on your part.”

“You are right...” she trailed off, feverish mind still not totally convinced, but strongly desirous to assuage the fear of her beloved and her friends. Speaking of, “Where are the others?”

He dipped the rag into the water, ringing it out and wiping down her forehead, “They’re looking for whoever sold that reagent to that thief. They won’t be long, since the seller clearly isn’t too smart if they advertise on public forums. Probably doesn’t even know they have something dangerous,” he pulled the rag off and squeezed it tightly over a seperate, empty bowl, angry grip stretching the fabric so hard you could hear the stitches tearing.

Starfire tried to reach a hand out, but found she had no energy, letting it flop down on her bed. Her stomach growled, from pain or hunger she did not know, and did not care to find out, “It is not dangerous to anyone but myself on this planet,” she reassured, but it had the opposite effect. Robin’s eyes under his mask narrowed so tightly they were just thick black lines.

“That’s more than enough to say it shouldn’t exist, isn’t it? Anything that could hurt you is-” he took a deep breath, “It’s bad. It’s just _bad_ and we need to stop it.”

“Robin,” her heart warmed, but against her will the exhaustion from talking was weighing on her, and she felt consciousness slipping away from her again, “Thank...you...”

Her eyes fell shut, and the last sensation she recalled was another kiss on her cheek.

* * *

“Last one, must be it,” Cyborg announced, cracking his knuckles. They had been knocking on doors of shady businessman who essentially sold snake oil to would-be supervillains for about two hours. Most of them assumed it was fine, what harm would selling someone a smoke bomb really do when there were the Teen Titans?

Plenty, it seems.

For the most part the teens simply _asked_ about it, but yet the grown adults selling bunk smokebombs still cried in fear. Losers, the lot of ‘em. This guy had to be the one, though, that managed to stumble on an actual tool that could take down a Titan, and needed to be stopped.

“Knock knock,” Beast Boy said as he knocked on the door (“Isn’t that redundant?” Raven muttered). They heard a row of locks click...an obnoxious amount of locks...how many locks did this guy have???

“Yo, speed this up or I’m blasting down your door!”

The clicking became more frantic, but shaking hands clearly slowed the whole process down, making the three sigh.

* * *

The Tower was _far_ too quiet.

No Beast Boy and Cyborg having good natured arguments over videogames, no Raven snapping at them to end those arguments, and no delightful and amusing Starfire chatter to fill the halls.

 _Too quiet_ , reminded him too much of...

Robin sat on the side of Starfire’s bed, trying to keep his eyes anywhere but her, both because it pained him to see and he felt uncomfortable just...watching her sleep. Her room always made him feel comfortable, a soft, easy on the eyes pink, and every accessory just screamed _Starfire_. Various pictures of her homeland, the Titans, and their myriad of friends abroad littered every available flat surface. It smelled like alien fruits and flowers, marred somewhat by Silkie’s...unique scent, but he’d long gotten used to that.

The little mutant grub must have read his thoughts, because it finally emerged from Starfire’s closet where it had been sleeping, inching over to him, cooing in what was likely concern, “Hey there Silkie. Star’s not...feeling great right now, but she’ll get better. Don’t worry.”

It just looked up at him with it’s nearly empty beady little eyes, and maybe he was just trying to comfort himself. He finally looked at her, running his knuckles against her cheek. He hated feeling so powerless, and hated seeing _her_ so powerless. Guilt seeped into his very being. 

_We all took her strength for granted._

Starfire’s body simply did not work like their own (well on Cyborg’s part, like his organic elements), she was more resilient, more durable, more powerful than them. It was easy to forget that was fallible to small things like this, even if it was different than what affected them.

He had never felt so weak just looking at someone.

“Please get better soon,” he muttered, tugging her blanket up, “I promise I won’t take you for granted like that again.”

* * *

“Yup, it’s chemical structure is a match. It was this guy.”

“Can we kick his butt now?” Beast Boy asked, looking a little too eager, and for once, he and Raven seemed to totally agree.

Cyborg shook his head, “We don’t have the time. But tell me one thing,” he pointed one metal finger at the squirrelly little man who jumped, afraid he might have a blaster in there, “Where’d you get this or how did you make it?”

“ ** _EEP!_ ** I, uh- t-t-this! It fell onto the roof and m-made the smoke extra foggy, great for getaways.”

He tossed a small piece of meteorite in Cyborg’s direction. It was a pretty average hunk of space rock, with the small blue crystals poking out the only distinguishing factor.

“This all you got?”

“Y-Yes!! There was a s-shooting s-star, it landed nearby but that’s all I h-have of it.”

“We’re going to need a more detailed location than ‘nearby’,” Raven said, glowering at him, hours of talking to random strangers compounding with her worry for Starfire to make her into one unpleasant girl right now. He gulped, “I-I can write d-down about w-where I think it is.”

“You better. Raven, could you gather up all the leftover gas he’s got and smash it outside?” It was not only to be rid of it, but rid of Raven’s foul mood. She nodded and began using her magic to gather up all the canisters. Cyborg looked closely again at the meteorite, then the man, “We find out you have more of this, and it’s beat down time, _buddy_.”

To emphasis that, Beast Boy transformed into a gorilla, barely squeezing into the small office they had piled into, and baring his teeth.

Needless to say, his point got across.

* * *

Three hours. They been gone three hours.

Robin had now taken to pacing across Starfire’s room, unable to sit still and look at her be in pain any longer. If this was just a normal illness, he would still be worried, but _this_? This was _killing him_.

“That’s it, I’m going-” just as he had resolved to march out the door and find the person who did this himself, his communicator began to beep, and he whipped it open so fast it may snap, “Any luck!?”

“ _W_ _oah, relax,_ ” through the small screen Robin could see Cyborg hold up a small rock, waving it, “ _It’s this bad boy right here. Apparently a meteor touched down and brought a Tamaranian virus with it. We’re heading back now, with this we can synthesize some sort of medicine for Star._ ”

Relief flooded his system like a broken dam, and he flopped down onto the floor, “Copy. See you soon.”

He clamped the device shut, running his fingers through his hair, “Thank goodness...”

* * *

It took twenty minutes for Raven. Cyborg, and Beast Boy to make it home, then another ten for Cyborg to begin analyzing the meteorite, and then another thirty for the analysis and synthesization to complete. 

That made it almost four solid hours that Starfire was suffering.

“We don’t have the most high tech medical stuff here,” Cyborg began as the final liquid filled the small vial, “But it should be enough to ease her pain. Then maybe she can tell us if she recognizes whatever this,” he held up the sample, “This is.”

Robin nodded, taking the vial carefully in his hands and all but sprinting to Starfire’s room, leaving the others to smile knowingly at his bad.

“Boy’s got it baaaaaad,” Beast Boy crooned, placing his hand over his heart and pretending to faint, “It’d be sweet if it wasn’t so _gross_.”

“Don’t act like you weren’t biting your nails the whole way back,” Raven moved her arm like she was going to lightly cuff him, making him flinch, but instead she ruffled his hair, “We were all worried about Star, but he was here with her the whole time. Imagine how bad that must have made him feel, watching but be unable to help.”

He smoothed out his ‘do, but appreciated the gesture more than he’d admit, “Yeah, you’re right...it felt really bad, _knowing_ Starfire was stuck here being, uh, not Starfire. It must have been way worse to _see_ it.”

Cyborg nodded, typing some more into the computer, “Let’s give ‘em some space. In the meantime I’ll run some more tests on this weird little space rock thingy.”

* * *

Robin gently shook Starfire’s shoulder, calling her name softly, “Star, Starfire...”

Her eyes fluttered open, wet and green like moss after a rainy day, “Ro...bin?”

“How are you feeling?”

She blinked, slow and long, “No better.”

He smiled, enjoying her curious and sleepy expression in response, “We found out what did this to you. We have some medicine that will make you feel better, if you think you can drink it.”

She made a noise of assent, moving her head in a way that looked almost like a nod. He put the glass to her lips and left her neck up so she could swallow it with great effort, “It should take a little while. I’ll let you rest, and we can talk about all this later.”

“Mhmm...” it sounded like agreement, but it carried her back into sleep.

* * *

“This?”

“Yeah. It apparently fell from space.”

Now that she felt well enough to stand, they had gathered in the living room, Robin sitting beside Starfire with a protective arm around her shoulders. For once, no one commented on this. She examined the meteorite in her hand carefully for a moment, before her eyes widened in realization and she gasped, “AH! This is what caused the Zorbnathian virus!”

Beast Boy scratched his cheek, “The Zorbwhazzit?”

“Many moons ago, a similar meteor fell on Tamaran, and it caused a great outbreak. I did not fall ill, but many of my people did. We were all thankful that it was not fatal to most, but having so many unable to work for so long greatly affected the whole planet. It was quite horrible.”

“I see,” Robin rubbed his chin, “So it’s not anything malicious, huh? Just a space flu?”

Starfire tucked into his shoulder, “Essentially. I am quite lucky to have you, my friends, untreated the Zorbnathian Flu can easily last for many painful weeks.”

Robin held her tighter.

“So,” Raven spoke up now, breaking the tense silence that had formed. None of them liked to think of how the situation could have been worse, “We probably should collect the rest of that meteorite? Before anyone else finds out they can use it against Starfire.”

“Agreed,” Robin said, but to their surprise, did not rise from his seat, “You guys think you can handle it? I want to stay here with Starfire, just in case.”

None of them were going to deny him that, least of all his girlfriend, who looked better, but still not particularly great. Cyborg walked over to put a hand on Starfire’s shoulder, smiling broadly, “I’m glad you’re okay.”

She smiled back just as brightly, “It is thanks to you, my dear friend. You gave my gratitude.”

“No need to thank me, just helping out my friend.”

The mood in the room had improved considerably, everyone relieved to see Star smile again. When things were good, they didn’t need to pay attention, but when things were _bad_ and they didn’t have her...it reminded them of the bad future she had told them of a long time ago, and that had scared them all. They were going to find that stupid hunk of space rock and smash it to bits.

No one would hurt their Starfire with it if they had anything to say about it.

“We’ll be back in a few hours, we’ll call if something big happens. In the meantime,” Cyborg pointed at Starfire, and then his finger traveled to Robin, “You two relax. When we get back it’ll be time for a steaming pot of my Grandma-Cyborg’s-Super-Secret-Fix-All-Illness chicken noodle soup!”

Beast Boy glared.

“...and a super small pot of veggie broth stew for a certain little green man.”

Beast Boy cheered.

“I have the most wonderful friends in all of the galaxies...” Starfire said softly, so only Robin could hear, and he kissed her forehead, “You deserve the best.”

She smiled, watching Cyborg and Best Boy argue what would be in the soup while Raven pinched her temples before just telling them to shut up and getting going.

“I **do** have the best.”•

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you thought! This was born of my desire to write RobStar, but also write something Starfire + team centric since the fact that she never got her own season like everyone else still haunts me to this day.
> 
> I realize maybe it's not super heroic for them to menace that guy but he did cause their friend hours of agonizing pain they couldn't prevent so I don't feel too guilty lmao.


End file.
